Traditionally, music stands are free standing small podiums that hold several sheets of music, and can display one or more of these sheets at a time. Although inexpensive and convenient, the music may blow away or fall off of the stand as people pass or sheets are turned. To overcome the sheets falling off, music stands will occasionally use bars, wires or clothespins to hold the sheets down. However, this may make it difficult to turn sheets or change music. Also, if a music piece is more than a sheet or two long, a musician must turn the pages, this can be both time consuming and difficult during play of the piece, particularly, if it is a complicated piece of music. Also, it is not uncommon for the music sheets to fall off the stand or the stand to tip over, which can be distracting or dangerous to musician and or instruments.
There have been some personal computers that could display music. However, they are bulky and generally do not show a whole sheet of music in a way that facilitates the user to play the piece. Computers are good for inputting a MIDI signal and converting the signal to music or scanning in a sheet of music for later review. However, the computers are not designed to match the needs of a musician playing a non-computer instrument. Some music, such as from musicnotes.com is in the form of digital music that shows a sheet of music and includes a MIDI track to play the music. However, this proprietary software is only for display and printing on a personal computer.